Was “The Toast from Hell” Added to Bury C.S. Lewis’s Truth About Evil?

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The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis was first published in February 1942 as a series of epistolary satirical letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, instructing his nephew Wormwood on tempting a human soul. It was originally serialized in The Guardian during WWII. It was a weekly Anglican church newspaper based in London, founded in 1846. Not to be confused with today’s Guardian Newspaper.

Early editions of the Screwtape Letters never included the “Toast from Hell” or the other title, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” Written in 1959 this short sequel takes the form of a devilish after-dinner address by Screwtape at the Tempters' Training College and was added to later editions of the book release.

C.S. Lewis himself never labeled The Screwtape Letters as “satire.” There is talk that he only wrote 31 letters as the subject matter was very heavy and weighed on him.

In his own introductions and letters, Lewis usually called it a series of letters or a fantasy in reverse, and sometimes just “a little fun” he had writing in the voice of a senior tempter.

Publishers quickly saw “satire” as a useful marketing hook.

By the time the omnibus editions with Screwtape Proposes a Toast appeared in 1961, back covers and dust jackets openly called it “a classic of religious satire.”

Lewis’s private correspondence shows that he was wary of the term “satire,” partly because satire implies ridicule of people, whereas his aim was to illuminate spiritual warfare and human frailty. He preferred to think of it as diabolical correspondence or “theology in reverse.”

When the Toast was added, the satirical label stuck even harder because of its social commentary on education and democracy. With John Cleese of Monty Python fame narrating it in 1999, the push for it not to be taken as seriously as C.S. Lewis intended continued.

The question has to be asked: Was it just a money decision by the publishers, or was it also an attempt to hide what Lewis was revealing about spiritual warfare in our lives and confronting that evil?

We remastered the recordings after we found them openly available online, but in poor audio quality. Here for your enjoyment is the Toast from Hell.

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